(slide 1) For our project, we focused on the chapter that deals with sexuality and social work. Sexuality is not something one would typically imagine would have any impact on social work, so it was interesting to read four articles that discussed how sexuality and social work interact.
(slide 2) In Michelle S. Ballan’s paper, “Disability and Sexuality within Social Work Education in the USA and Canada: The Social Model of Disability as a Lens for Practice,” she discusses the struggle of social workers to adequately provide for disabled clients. Ballan believes that disabled people are often overlooked by social work curriculum, especially when it comes to dealing with their sexuality, which has “often been feared and restricted due to fears and misconceptions” (Ballan, 2008, 197), and argues for more inclusion of disabled persons struggles in social work curriculum.
(slide 3) However, in the paper written by Bazzo et al. “Attitudes of Social Service Providers towards the Sexuality of Individuals with Intellectual Disability,” they argue that there are cultural differences with how social work providers deal with the sexuality of disabled individuals. Their study found that “the participants showed a liberal attitude towards the sexuality of individuals with disability” (Bazzo et al., 2006, 113). Since this is an Italian study, …show more content…
In Beverly McPhail’s paper, “Questioning Gender and Sexuality Binaries: What Queer Theorists, Transgendered Individuals and Sex Workers Can Teach Social Work,” she argues that social work tends to “rely on the binary categorizations of male/female and heterosexuality/homosexuality” (McPhail, 2004, 3) and largely ignores the experiences of gay, transgender or queer individuals. She believes that they have much to teach the world of social work, and that their experiences should be incorporated in the social work